Dragon Age: Dalish Heart
by DarowdrynofArcadia
Summary: Tamsin Hawke is a Templar, though she understands their duties differently from the rest of the Order. When she meets a mage that breaks all the rules, she holds to her beliefs and makes a promise that will change both their lives forever. Rated T for mild language, suggestive themes, and lots of fluff.
1. Impressions

My name is Tamsin Hawke. I am the Champion of Kirkwall, but more importantly, I am a Templar. To be more specific, I am everything that a Templar _should_ be, not what they are in the city. I want to protect the mages in my care, not oppress them, and it is my belief that mages are not inherently evil, but turn to evil practices when they are contained and treated horribly, leaving them to feel that there is no other way for them to be free. All I have ever done is try to keep those that I love safe, and even the friends I have made along the way recognize that philosophy, those choices I make for them all.

I grew up the oldest of three, and even then I was the one to protect the others, to defend them from those in our village who would have picked on them. I loved my siblings dearly. Carver, the brother I loved without reservation, a frustrating, caring, obstinate, headstrong man who just wanted to be recognized for his own accomplishments. Bethany, the sister that I adored and who followed me everywhere as a child, the sweetest mage I have ever met. These were my charges at first, and I loved them the more for it. I never once questioned any of what happened to us, not even after father died. When the Blight came, I took Carver with me to Ostagar to fight alongside King Cailan. We were there when Teryn Loghain betrayed us all, when the Wardens lit the beacon and the reinforcements we were to receive fled the field instead.

We ran for our lives, running and running until we reached our home in Lothering. We were there when the newest Grey Warden, a mage of the Amell line, stopped to visit family. I met my cousin, and I could not help feeling the kinship between us, both possessed of the ice blue eyes of the Amells. I would have followed her if she had asked, and I would have defended her with my life, but instead she bade us to flee, to run as far away as we could, and so I took my mother, my siblings, and what little we could carry with us and ran. I protected my sister on the road, and Carver protected mother, even after we met the first friend I would have in our new home, though we had yet to reach it. I lost my brother as we ran, a price I wish I had not had to pay. Carver, more the fool in that moment than any other, cursed the ogre that stood before him and charged alone, not even granting me a chance to aid him before he was dashed upon the ground to gurgle his life into the dirt.

Mother blamed me for his death, and I did nothing to tell her otherwise. How could I, when I felt that it was indeed my fault, at least a little? I did not stop him, and indeed did what I had always done and protected Bethany, the mage sister who was so close to me and whom I treasured far beyond any other. I blamed myself for his death even as mother did, and though Bethany and the woman who would be my closest friend, Aveline, told me it was not my fault, I still felt I could have prevented it. We pressed on, or tried to, but Aveline's husband was too ill with the Blight to move on and we spent too much time mourning for my brother. It was fortune, and a very old witch, that saved us.

In the end, we made it to the city with the aid of the one the Dalish elves call Asha'bellenar, though I have also heard her called Flemeth, and the Witch of the Wilds. Were it not for her, we would never have made it to the port city, and then onto the ship that took us to Kirkwall, and all she asked was that we deliver an amulet to an elf called Marethari. However, we landed in Kirkwall to find that there was nothing for us there, that the Amell name had been ridden into the dust by an uncle that mother left behind when she left with me in tow. Gamlen Amell, the only living family we had left, was a lying, cheating, drunken sot who I wish I had never had the displeasure of meeting, but still he was family so I dealt with him. I bear still the grudge for selling my sister and I into servitude to the elf Athenril though. She wasn't a bad master, but she was tough and she kept us working for a year to pay off the debt we incurred when she bought our way into the city.

Once we were free, things needed to change. Bethany and I started looking for work, for adventuring, for anything that would get us the money and the status to leave Lowtown and be somebody again, to protect her from scrutiny by the Templars. Almost immediately, we came across the dwarf Bertrand, a surly shifty little nug if ever I saw one, but his Deep Roads expedition promised to bring riches and rewards enough to buy back the estate that was rightfully ours, if only he would take us. He turned us away, but his brother turned out to be far more... helpful, and much friendlier. His name was Varric Tethras, and he told us exactly how he could guarantee us a place on the expedition. All we needed was fifty sovereigns and a map of the Deep Roads, which he knew a place to find, and we could invest and become rich women. It was because of his enthusiasm that I then met everyone else I came to hold dear in Kirkwall. Anders, the Grey Warden apostate mage who had a spirit in his head. Fenris, a fugitive from the Tevinter Imperium and right bastard. Isabella, a pirate with legs that simply do not stop and the tits to match. I will admit, my eyes wandered a time or two. Sebastian Vael, a prince in exile from Starkhaven. But the most important one of them all? Merrill, First of the Keeper of the Sabrae clan of the Dalish, apostate mage if Dalish can be called apostates, and a blood mage. At least, that's how everyone else saw her. But I saw her... very differently.

* * *

My hand flies to the haft of my axe, the long shield rattling on my armor at the movement when I see something on the path ahead. After a moment more, the form unfolds and I see a petite elf with black hair and these eyes that are a green I do not have a name for, the staff of a Keeper on her back, and I relax noticeably. Something about her is so... disarming, so innocent and harmless. She begins to babble endlessly, her chirpy voice carrying an accent that I've never heard from one of the Dalish, a more lilting and happy sound than their thick brogue, and I worry that she'll forget to breathe. I still her lips when I press a gauntleted finger to them, a light flush lighting her startled features, and I decided that perhaps she hadn't had much contact with others in the past. Something about that thought nags at me, but I push it aside and move on to why we are here. I ask her if she is sure she wishes to leave her people, and the resolve that hardens her eyes concerns me. Why would one of the People want so badly to leave her clan that she would cling to the offer of travel with a human, the ones they call shemlen with such disdain?

I push past that thought for now like all the rest and motion on, though a few steps trips a silent ward on the mountain and the dead of ages past claw their way from the earth's embrace. I truly hate necromancy, finding it far more repulsive than the blood magic we are told to fear from birth, and this is no exception. A war cry on my lips and my enchanted axe in my hand, I charge into the fray and hack with wild abandon, the large wall of my shield defending me from the worst blows and my armor catching the most of the rest. I think I am holding well on my own until two recently still corpses tumble past me and I turn to see Bethany standing shoulder to shoulder with the Dalish, their hands outstretched and still glowing from the lightning blasts they conjured. Isabella and Varric are joking and off in their own little world, leaving me to do as I have always done and defend the mages who perhaps do not need my aid. Still, I will not abandon them now, and the Dalish has caught my attention again, so much so that when a corpse rises from behind her I do not think, I simply charge, smashing it down and calling upon Andraste's grace to smite the fell beast at my feet, rendering it inert with a final blow to the neck.

The battle over at last, I put my arms away and turn to regard this small and fragile-seeming elf, staring deep into her eyes and considering all that I have seen. "So you are a mage..."

* * *

"This is where the elves live?" she asks, a note of pain in her voice. The other have all gone back to their respective homes, leaving me alone with Merrill, my thoughts scattered among the clouds and refusing to return to me. I want to reach out, to comfort her somehow, but instead I say, "It's not all bad. If you need to get away, Varric is at The Hanged Man just up the road a bit, and I live a short walk away as well. You're not alone here." I try to smile encouragingly, but she looks down with confusion in her eyes. She mumbles something under her breath, and I lift her face with a gentle hand so she can repeat it. "Will you come visit me?" Then panic flashes in her eyes and she waves her hands frantically, as if afraid she has offended me. "Not right now, of course! I-I mean later. I-if you want. It's just... I'd like to see you."

I can't help but smile at her, she is so sweet and innocent, and I wonder what her life has been like to this point to make her so afraid of interaction with others. Laughter in my voice, I answer her, "Of course I'll visit, whenever you want me to." Something about this moment makes my heart hammer in my chest, my lungs constrict, my head swim. I don't know why and I don't understand why simply being this close to her derails everything about me, but I quickly decide it doesn't matter.

* * *

"So... Merrill." calls a voice the moment I open the door of Gamlen's hovel. I blink at my sister, uncomprehending of her meaning until she elaborates. "I saw how you looked at her when we met her, sister. Do not think to hide this from me, I can tell that you fancy her even now." I stammer a denial, but she is grinning at me and I know that I will never dissuade her from believing it. "Oh yes, big bad Tamsin Hawke, Templar prodigy and mighty warrior, has a soft spot for a little Dalish mage who she just met _and..._ who practices blood magic. Oh, if Cullen could see you now, what would he say?" The sparkle in her eyes tells me that she is just teasing, but the very idea of Knight Captain Cullen knowing that I was even _consorting_ with a blood mage, let alone that my sister's accusations might be true, is one I fear. After what we heard about the Circle in Ferelden, Cullen is likely angry and even more fanatical about hunting maleficar than he was when I knew him. Then another thought strikes me and I turn to run out of the house again, intending to run to Varric in The Hanged Man to ask him if there is any way we can protect Merrill from the Templars of Kirkwall, when my sister's hand closes on my arm.

"Calm yourself sister. She is in the Alienage, and you know that we are all close to her here. Well, all but Fenris, and honestly that pompous ass just makes me angry. We can protect her, you do not need to fear for her." I hear Bethany huff behind me and continue, "Honestly, if I'd known you'd make this much of a fuss about it, I wouldn't have mentioned Cullen at all. I'm still amazed that you learned from him while you were training as a soldier, and even more amazed that you didn't take to his way of thinking. In fact... you treat mages even better now, and you've always treated my kind well." I turn and pull her into a hug, murmuring in her ear, "Of course I do Bethany. I learned what a Templar can do, but I also learned their history and their purpose. They are supposed to protect mages, not imprison them like they do Ferelden, or oppress them like they do here. A Templar's duty is to defend the mage or mages they are charged with, even if it means giving up their own life to do so. I will always do that." I kiss the top of her head and whisper again, "I will always protect you, sister mine."


	2. Rambling

My name is Merrill, and I'm the First of the Keeper of the Sabrae clan. Well, I was. I mean... I was supposed to be, and I was, but I'm not anymore because I left. I had a disagreement with Marethari, our Keeper, and she wouldn't listen to me and I wouldn't listen to her. I'm trying to do what I must to save my clan, and maybe even bring back my friends, or find them, or something. I have to do something, and she won't let me, not while I'm with her. So I had to leave, and I miss them, I miss my clan, but I have a purpose here in Kirkwall as well, and friends. I've never _had_ friends, so it's nice to know what it feels like to have people who are looking out for me.

There's Varric, a dwarf with no beard. I didn't know that was possible, I always thought that their beards were a part of them, like maybe they used them for something, keeping pets in maybe? Anyway, there's him, and he calls me Daisy and he's very nice and helpful, he gave me a ball of twine to use so I wouldn't get lost when I leave my house. I don't think that everyone else in the Alienage appreciates it, but they leave me alone so I guess it's alright, and I leave it at home a lot because I'm always with him and Hawke, and she never gets lost. Hawke is so pretty... and she's smart and she's funny and she's so very _tall_. She's got this hair that's the color of spun gold and eyes so blue and bright that I think of think of the snowcaps on the mountains in Ferelden near the Brecilian Forest. She never lets anything bad happen to me, it's like she knows when I'm in danger and she's always there. She's so amazing...

Oh, and then there's Isabella. She's about as far from Hawke as you can get, and she's still wonderful to me. I mean, she's tall and smart too, she knows lots of things, but where Hawke is all light colors and kindness, Isabella is sassy and sarcastic and she's always saying crude things that make me confused. She's very pretty though, and I think I could fall into her boots and never hit the bottom. There's Sebastian, though I'm not really certain about him. His armor is shiny though, and when I asked him about it being so bright, he said that the light of the Maker was all the armor he needed. I said it made him a target, so maybe he could ask the Maker to dim his light a bit, and then he wouldn't need so much armor. I don't think he liked that, he's awfully touchy that way.

There's Aveline, and though her hair is rather pretty, kind of like flames or bright orange flowers, I think that wearing all that metal all the time makes her a bit cranky. She's very direct and doesn't ever seem to be in a good mood, but maybe that's also just because she's the captain so she's always busy and never gets any time to herself. I heard Isabella say that alone time is the key to keeping yourself happy and fulfilled. I don't know what she meant, but the way Hawke and Varric looked at her I'm sure there's another meaning that I didn't catch or understand or something. Whatever it was though, maybe Aveline needs more of it.

Then there's Hawke's sister, and I have to be honest, I was surprised to find out that they were related because Hawke has blue eyes and golden hair, and Bethany is all dark hair and brown eyes and magic. They're so sweet though that I suppose it's part of the family traits. They tell me that their brother wasn't, and I have a hard time imagining a brother for them, especially if he wasn't as nice as they are. Bethany disapproves of me sometimes though because of the blood magic, and I understand that they all think demons are going to possess you if you do it but I know what I'm doing and that's not going to happen.

Anders has the most issues with it though. Well, him and Fenris. Anders understands what can happen though, or he says he does, because he has a spirit in his head. He says that they were friends and when the spirit's body died, he didn't want the spirit to die so he offered to share his body with him. When the spirit accepted though, Anders says he changed. He was supposed to be a spirit of Justice, but Anders says that all of his anger at the way mages are treated everywhere turned his friend into a spirit of Vengeance, and now he comes out whenever Anders sees injustice for mages or anything else that ever made him angry before.

And Fenris I don't like, and he doesn't like me. He's an elf too, but he has no pride in his people and no memories of what his life was like before he was a slave. He says that the process of him getting the lyrium marks that make him who he is and let him do the things he's capable of wiped out his memories from before. Now all he ever thinks about is revenge on the master he had and his hatred of mages. I don't know why he hates us, but he does and it makes it very hard to concentrate on anything. He hates me especially because I practice blood magic, and he doesn't seem to understand that I only do it because I'm trying to restore a piece of the history of my people and I know what I'm doing and it's part of the teachings of the Keeper anyway because it's part of the magic of the People so he doesn't need to hate it or hate me and I'm rambling again. I do that, sorry.

* * *

I haven't been in this city long, only a few days, but the Alienage is... not what I would have expected for the place where elves live. I know that we're second class citizens in the eyes of some humans, or even most humans, but the People deserve better than a place with muggings and knee-high mud and stalls that flood out and a crime rate higher than anywhere else in Kirkwall. We have a tiny space, only a few hundred square feet, but there are still more thefts, murders, and muggings in the Alienage than anywhere else in all of Kirkwall combined, and I hate it. I hate what my people have been reduced to, the elvhen deserve better, most especially after what one of the Dalish did for everyone in the Blight. Mahariel, my childhood friend and the only one who ever even tried to connect to me, sacrificed her life to save Ferelden from the Blight and kill the Archdemon. I know that here in the Free Marches no one cares what happens in Ferelden, but Orlais and Par Vollen and the Marches and Starkhaven were all affected by the rise of the darkspawn during the Fourth Blight, and one of my people, my _clan_ sacrificed herself for them all and no one cares, no one does anything. No one but Hawke.

She's proving to me again just how different she is from the rest of the shemlen with everything she does, and today more than ever. There is a Dalish that lives in the Alienage with me called Arianni, a woman with a mage-blood son with a human father. She doesn't want him in the Circle, says she's afraid of what would happen to him there, but she doesn't see what other options she has anymore because her son is having more and more nightmares where spirits are whispering to him. Anders keeps calling them demons, but he's wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, but not exactly right either, since they aren't all bad though the ones he's worried about kind of are sometimes. Not all of them though, the one that helped me wasn't so bad, in fact he was really very nice about it. I told him I wouldn't let him out, but he still helped me.

Anyway, Arianni is begging Hawke to save him, to convince him to do what is necessary and let the Circle protect him, and she says she will but I think she only means that she'll convince him to do what is necessary. I know that she doesn't like the way the Circle is here in Kirkwall, I think she has another plan for him though I don't know what and I'm not even sure she knows herself. Regardless, she says she's going to help.

* * *

I can't help staring at this amazing woman, this human with more compassion than I ever believed possible for one of her kind, and I can't help the way my heart squeezes when she looks at me, or talks to me, or accidentally bumps into me. She's standing in a cave, well we all are, and Varric is doing that thing he does where he makes something up on the spot and says it so that everyone listening believes it and I'm still not convinced that it isn't magic, so then I wonder what everyone means when they say that dwarves don't have magic because Varric obviously does, but then I think about how I can't feel any power flowing through the air and I remember that if he had magic he wouldn't be using Bianca, and then I just confuse myself. He says that Feynriel is the Viscount's illegitimate son and for a moment I think he is and wonder why Arianni didn't tell us, then I remember who his father is and what is real but I keep my mouth shut because I learned what a trick was supposed to be when I messed up one that Hawke was trying to pull on some thugs when I questioned it and she had to explain it to me.

Anyway, the slavers that are listening to Varric get nervous and shift about and then throw some money at us and run away, and Hawke just stands tall and reminds me how short I am compared to her and she very carefully explains why we're here to Feynriel and then tells him that she would never condemn him to the Circle because that is no way for mages to live and I gasp because I thought we were here to bring him back but she's saying she wants to send him to live with my clan and learn from Marethari and I can't stop myself before I say, "It would be your humanity that marks you among the People, not your magic. Still I think they will help you." He looks at us with such joy in his face that I cannot believe that anything else matters to him in that moment, and I am finding myself very quickly losing my sanity when she is around. I want to wrap Hawke in my arms and never let go, to kiss her a hundred thousand times and then do it again because it makes me happy, I want to do things I don't even know the names for or how they work, and more than anything I want to be close to her. There's only one problem: She's Hawke, and I'm... not.

Well, I suppose there's another problem. I see the way that Isabella looks at her, the covetous desire in her eyes that tells me she wants to possess the gigantic blonde that leads us, and there is no way that I could ever compete with her. Isabella is darkness and temptation and sexual... things and curves and beauty and intelligence all rolled into one package with legs and boobs and pretty eyes and a voice that growls just so, and I'm just this little twiggy thing with pale skin and vallaslin and pointy ears and no chestiness or butt to speak of who stammers when a pretty girl talks to her. How can I ever compete with a pirate made of desire when I'm just an elf who uses blood magic?


End file.
